Head Above Water
by bellerophon
Summary: A little tribute to the life and times of Stephanie McMahon in the WWE. Some one revisits significant occasions of hers.


TITLE: Head Above Water (1/1)

AUTHOR: Bellerophon

EMAIL: bellerophon_666@hotmail.com

CATEGORY: WWE

RATING: PG

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters. I don't actually own much. The song belongs to Hunters & Collectors and is called Head Above Water.

DISTRIBUTION: Can be found on fanfiction.net. If you want it just let me know.

SUMMARY: A little tribute to the life and times of Stephanie McMahon in the WWF. //\\ indicate song lyrics.

****

HEAD ABOVE WATER

__

//Give me your word...you can take it

I'm as pure as the driven snow

Make a promise...I'll never break it

Yeah, nobody will ever know

I'm supposed to be a saint so I fake it

Yeah, my stash is beginning to grow\\

When Stephanie first came to the World Wrestling Federation, she was nothing like the person she is now. Now she's a woman who nobody controls, nobody trusts, nobody likes. But back then...

She looked so different back then. Long straight brown hair. Nothing trashy about her. She was all class. Daddy's little girl. She was pretty back then. Innocent and pure and fresh. She had her romance with Andrew Martin, a first love Romeo and Juliet type of thing.

And she was so happy. She was in the business she had loved her whole life. She had the perfect boyfriend. Even though her family didn't like Test, he was so sweet that she didn't care. They struggled together to find a way to make it work. And they made it work. Even then she had a stubborn, rebellious streak a mile wide.

There wasn't a person who really hated her then. Not really. 

Maybe it was just too easy to fall for Stephanie back then. She was easy to love.

But Vince, he had no qualms about using her, his own daughter. He had people go through her private belongings, he had her kidnapped, he almost married her off to the Undertaker in a black wedding.

I guess that's when the scales tipped and the McMahon in her began to show itself.

__

//Just look at me...I'm so easy

Dressed to kill, my teeth are clean

I'm feeling good, I'm feeling sleazy

I'm looking at your peaches and cream

Trust me I'm yours for the taking

I've got the biggest head you've ever seen

Don't you know I'd do anything to keep my head above water\\

She married to spite her father. She turned on her beloved dad and that expression, that sneer, that smirk starting appearing on her face more often.

And that innocent, little girl was gone. Stephanie McMahon took the first step down a path that would lead to her eventual downfall. Estranged from her family, she relied on her wits and her cunning to stay in the game.

And that was it. That was the time she began to self destruct. When all her negative feelings, her anger, her hatred and her fear began to eat at her and twist her around.

She wasn't the only one who lost innocence then. Test, well, he was never the same after that. Women became something to play with but never to keep because closeness meant they could hurt you and betray you. And that was something he never wanted again.

Stephanie started dressing differently, separating herself from that little blue-eyed girl everyone had liked. She didn't want to be the girl who would be used and hurt by someone she loved and adored. She wanted to be the one hurting people. She wanted to know that no one would ever be able to hurt her like that again.

__

//Well have you heard ? Would you believe it?

Do you realise how much I know?

I could tell you the biggest story

There's no limit to the seed I sow

Yeah the suit has a hand so I shake it

My greed is beginning to show

Don't you know I'd do anything to keep my head above water\\

No one expected her to go so far as she did. I know I certainly didn't. It was as much a surprise to me when I found out she had bought ECW.

It truly scared me though. I thought Stephanie and Shane's Alliance might be able to actually do some damage to WWF, maybe even ruin it. After all, Stephanie has the business acuity of her father and trademark cunning of a McMahon. She's also one of the most ruthless people I've ever met and coming from me, that's saying a lot.

Turns out that wasn't enough.

But that was the final step for her. When she turned on the business she had grown up loving, when she turned on her parents and the people she had worked with, that was the end of the Stephanie McMahon I once knew.

It hurts to think of how badly she must have been twisted to act out so wildly. To want to run her family's business to the ground, to take it over and destroy it. I never saw it coming. I would've tried to stop it, to stop her if I'd known. Maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they did if I'd bothered to look around every once in a while. But I was too caught up in my own problems and well, you know what they say about hindsight being clearer than foresight.

The Alliance was eventually beaten and destroyed. Stephanie left WWF television just as she re-entered it, like a screaming harpy out to kill everyone. Seems kind of suitable.

__

//I'd climb the highest mountain...I'd swim the deepest ocean

I'd girdle the globe just to find the magic potion

That could change everything...that could set me on fire

Bring me down easy on wings of desire

And oh to be alive, I'd suck to survive

I'd do anything; to keep my head above water\\

When Stephanie finally came back into the business, she wanted to rule the roost again. She wanted to be the dominant female in the WWF. She expected to just go back to how things were during the McMahon-Helmsley Era. 

But her marriage was falling apart and that was the reason she was back there. And Stephanie didn't know how to fix it, because the only way she knew how to love by that time was to lie and manipulate and cheat. So that's what she tried to do.

She tried to hold everything together by lying and saying she was pregnant. But god knows she has too many enemies to ever get away with that. And in the end, the night of her storybook, picture perfect, dream wedding, it all fell down around her ears. 

I don't know whether she was even in love by that time. I don't think she was. It was a means to an end. But what goes around comes around, I guess. She was originally married to be used by someone else and then she used that marriage eventually for her own purposes. 

What else would you expect from a McMahon?

__

//Everybody knows...butter wouldn't melt in my mouth

Hey, don't you know...I'm as pure as the driven snow

Hey, I give you my word, you can take it

I'll make you a promise and I'll never break it\\

And then she made that deal with Chris Jericho. Made that partnership and swore to him that she would help him keep his Undisputed champion belts. Well, we all know how that turned out.

But the depths of her anger, her hatred. Being humiliated on television, it made her see red. That was always the thing with Stephanie. She loves passionately but step wrong and that can turn straight away into passionate hatred. I guess I really understand the saying 'there's a fine line between love and hate' now.

She used to hate Chris Jericho. But then she was cuddling up to him, somehow getting him to promise to protect her from the Pedigree. That final match when she lost, when she got kicked out, he failed to protect her. But Stephanie didn't blame him. He took her back to her hotel room and looked after her. There's cut footage of of them as they leave that last night of hers that wasn't shown on television. Jericho is holding her as she cries, a look of abject anger on his face.

I know it hurt her immeasurably to have to leave. To be forcibly removed from the ring by security, knowing it would be her last time ever. The place she dreamed of being for so long and she could never return. 

Now she's gone for good.

She used to be fresh and pretty. Now she's like a wax flower, an imitation of who she once was. Maybe that's why she's with Jericho. This business has hurt both of them, changed them. Maybe they connect on a jaded level, cynical and cold. I don't know, maybe they really do love each other.

I'm told they're very happy together.

__

//Nobody will ever know

Just look at me...I'm so easy

I'm feeling good, I'm feeling sleazy\\

The screen froze on the image of Stephanie and Chris Jericho holding each other. Triple H stared at the television for a moment before picking up the half empty bottle on the table and swigging a shot of tequila. He winced as the strong alcohol burned his throat and he wiped his wet eyes before picking up the remote and rewinding the video.

Hunter swallowed back the lump in his throat, opened his wallet and pulled out a small package held inside it. He fingered his gold wedding band that he'd had the cleaning crew find and unfolded a faded, lined picture. It was the only photo of her that he'd kept.   


Her back was to the camera and her head was turned to smile at him. It wasn't her trademark sneer either, just a beautiful happy smile. Her blue eyes shone at him as the wind tossed her hair around her face. They'd been at some town and he'd taken her to an outdoor gallery she'd wanted to see. It had been a stormy, windy day. She loved that type of weather. She said it made her feel alive. He'd taken out his camera just as she saw a beautiful statue in front of her. She'd turned around to point it out to him and he took her picture. She always loved beautiful things.

Holding the old picture tightly, Hunter tried to tear the image in half. He tried to rid himself of the ghost that haunted him. He wanted to move on. He needed to leave her behind him. But he couldn't make himself do it. He couldn't destroy that final reminder of who she had once been with him.

So he folded the picture and put it back in his wallet with his wedding ring. He took another shot of the tequila. He pressed play on the remote and started the compilation video again.

And Hunter watched as Stephanie McMahon drifted away from him again.

*******


End file.
